Search for the standard model Higgs boson in ZH -> l+ l- bbbar production with the D0 detector in 9.7 fb-1 of ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

Abstract

See paper for full list of authors - submitted to Phys. Rev. LettWe present a search for the standard model (SM) Higgs boson produced in association with a Z boson in 9.7 fb-1 of ppbar collisions collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. Selected events contain one reconstructed Z-> e+e- or Z->mu+mu- candidate and at least two jets, including at least one jet from a b quark. Upper limits at the 95% C.L. on the ZH production cross section times branching ratio for H->bbbar are set for Higgs boson masses 90 <= M_H <= 150 GeV. The observed (expected) limit for M_H = 125 GeV is 7.1 (5.1) times the SM cross section. To validate the search procedure, we also measure the cross section for ZZ production in the same final state. It is found to be 0.8 +- 0.4 (stat) +- 0.4 {syst) times its SM prediction, with a significance of 1.5 standard deviations with respect to the background-only hypothesis